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From The Journal's “Slipped By Us But Still Deserves To Be Covered Department”:

Friday Harbor teams took two seconds and a first place finish in the second annual Orcas Island Basketball Tournament, March 13.

Maybe it was the lights, but more than likely it was experience, some hard work and a reorganization of the tournament that helped turn things around for a group of 22 fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade Friday Harbor girls.

Organized into three teams that competed in two different divisions, Friday Harbor teams captured two second-place finishes and a first in an eight-team tournament that included teams from Orcas and Sedro-Woolley.

In last year's one-division, eight-team tournament, most of the games were played in the dark, or nearly dark, thanks to a power outage that occurred on the island shortly before it started. Thus the name. This year, there were lights, bleachers filled with a very enthusiastic and supportive crowd and a flip-flop of results, with Friday Harbor moving from the bottom to the top of the results.

In the Gold Division, Friday Harbor's SWISH team of fifth- and sixth-graders, coming off an earlier mainland tournament championship, took second this time to a very large and scrappy Sedro-Woolley squad.

In the Silver Division, the Friday Harbor Red team prevailed in an exciting and close contest against the Friday Harbor Blue team to take first and second, respectively.

All teams received trophies, which are displayed in the Friday Harbor Elementary School office window.

”A lot of thanks goes to the Friday Harbor Athletic Association for sponsoring the teams and the many volunteers on Orcas who helped out in so many ways,” Red team coach John Pachuta said.

Coaches were Rod Turnbull, Don Galt and Monique Woodward of the SWISH team; Paul Hopkins of the Blue team; and Pachuta with the Red team.

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